


It Makes a Life of Deception Absolutely Necessary

by Culumacilinte



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Crack, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:29:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok, so I'm unanoning these from the Gallifrey kinkmeme, just because I'm pleased with them. The prompt was: Any/Any, pretending to be married. Here are three variations on that theme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Braxiatel/Romana

Braxiatel _knows_ this is not a wise idea. It is the sort of thing he wishes that one of his future selves might have bothered to warn him of. Not, of course, that he would have been able to avoid the situation even had he been forewarned, but he is certain that he would have been able to navigate it with more grace. Though externally he shows no sign beyond perhaps a slight paling of his cheeks, Brax feels himself scrabbling desperately for his customary restraint, to return the situation to his control.

Next to him, Romana, bless her, is gaping like a fish.

She is one of the most intelligent people he knows, canny on her own ground, thoroughly magnificent in many respects, but she's a poor liar under pressure, and any hint of the personal quite sweeps the rug from under her firmly-planted, presidential feet.

So Braxiatel takes the initiative. He inclines his head graciously and dares to slide a hand around her shoulders. He does _not_ notice the delicacy of the bone under his palm, the shocking smallness of Romana's physical form. 'May I introduce my lady wife, the Lady Andratreloneksevosten?'

Under his touch, she tenses minutely, and he-- gently, so gently-- tightens his grip on her shoulder, a soft squeeze. A nanospan later, he can feel her relax, and hear (he doesn’t turn to look) the falsely diplomatic smile in her voice as she says, ‘Our apologies for arriving like this; we shan’t be under your feet for long, I promise. Our travel capsule has been damaged--’

He doesn’t really pay attention to the rest of the conversation between Romana, who has now comfortably settled into firm, polite form, and the alien still eyeing them suspiciously. She’ll soothe him, he has no doubt. At the moment, the majority of Braxiatel’s brain is devoted to spinning out possibilities of how best to run this situation. He would be a fool not to take advantage of what the circumstances offer, but it will be a matter of walking the delicate line between self-indulgence and self-preservation. 

He’s not idiot enough to think Romana would actually let him try anything, nor would he, but the ruse will certainly allow for the kind of casual touch that there is ordinarily no place for in their relationship. The fragile bend of Romana’s elbow, the hollow under the hinge of her jaw, her strong hands; between seeming spouses, such touches would be as nothing. And perhaps, he thinks, the opportunity for Romana to dress in something that flatters her the way she deserves. Those alone would make this farce worthwhile.

‘Tell me, Braxiatel, _tell_ me,’ Romana hisses the instant they are on their own, ‘you did not plan this.’

Brax blinks. ‘My lady?’

‘ _Please_ tell me that you did not arrange for us to be pulled off course to this-- this primitive backwater whose absurd mores require us to pose as a couple as part of some... elaborate and ill-advised flirtation on your part.’

‘My lady, I assure you--’

‘Oh, don’t you _my lady_ me, Brax. I am supposed to be your _wife_ , remember?’ She laughs thinly, and Braxiatel, through sheer effort, does not swallow.

‘Romana,’ he amends, his voice dropping to something softer. ‘For once, I had no hand in this. I promise.’

She eyes him narrowly for a few more moments, still every bit the Madam President, before visibly returning to simply-- Romana. He’s able to appreciate what a remarkable transition it is; she does nothing so obvious as slump or smile; rather, it’s a combination of minute changes. Her shoulders fall back slightly and with them, lengthen her neck; the tension around her mouth lessons, the lines around her eyes suddenly less harshly carved. She looks much softer, and Braxiatel experiences a brief, fierce ache to touch her face. He does not allow it, of course. Now is hardly the time.

‘Good,’ she says wryly, and then, ‘I notice you kept the High House syllables in my name.’

Not only had he kept what was already there, he’d added another, but he doesn’t say that. ‘You may be pretending not to be President,’ he says gravely, ‘but you could _never_ be less than nobility.’

She whacks him in the arm, and it is so unexpected that Braxiatel grins outright. ‘ _Wretched_ ,’ she groans. ‘If we are to be married, I absolutely forbid you from fawning in that ridiculous manner.’

‘As my lady wife desires, so shall I ever endeavour to do.’

Romana whacks him again.

That night, against all his expectations, they dance. Romana is a vision in blue and copper silk, her throat dripping with a glut of topaz and spectrolite and sapphire, her hair swept up into a twist like a fold of spun brass. The arch of her neck is left scintillatingly bare, as are her arms; the dorsa of her feet arch at the coaxing of her heeled shoes, tendons and delicate bird-bones visible through the skin as she dances. She is shockingly, surpassingly lovely, and it is only because Braxiatel is well accustomed to lovely things, he thinks a trifle fancifully, that he is able to take his eyes from her at all.

Romana is not a naturally skilled dancer. This is not to say that she isn’t competent; competency is merely a matter of knowing the mechanics and being able to reproduce them, which she certainly does, but she has never been an artist. Braxiatel doesn’t mind. It is enough to know that that slim hand in his holds the power to destroy worlds, should she wish it, or rule them, that the swoop of those delicate shoulders is for once not occupied with the business of holding up Gallifrey. It is _heady_. He has rarely been this close to her, certainly never touched her so intimately, though he makes no move to make the dance anything more than a dance.

The music falls silent, and he can hear both their heartbeats, syncopated a half-beat off. His hand rests in the dip of Romana’s back, he can taste the wine on her breath.

Voice pitched low and intimate, he murmurs, ‘Thank you. Romana.’

A soft, caught breath, the space of a nanospan, and then Romana smiles-- a safe smile, genuine but certainly not intimate-- and steps back.

‘Well! I think I’ve had quite enough dancing for one night. Shall we, Brax?’

He allows her to take his hand and lead him back to their table.


	2. Braxiatel/Narvin

‘I hate you,’ says Narvin.

Brax smiles his oiliest, most ingratiating smile at the Soolin ambassador. ‘Poor dear, space travel doesn’t agree with him. Makes him tetchy, you understand how it is.’

The ambassador bubbles its understanding. Narvin’s scowl is truly spectacular, and Brax takes a moment to appreciate it; from a purely aesthetic perspective, it is nothing short of impressive. He entertains the possibility of time-locking Narvin in this moment and displaying him on the Collection with a little placard on the wall next to him: _A Study in Time Lord Bureaucracy, edition: Impotent Fury_. 

‘No, really,’ Narvin says again, ‘I _hate_ you. You are the smuggest, most revolting-- get your hand off my _neck_ , you pervert.’ He twitches away from Brax’s touch with a violent jerk, slapping his arm away.

‘He keeps threatening divorce,’ Braxiatel coos, ‘but he doesn’t mean it, really.’

‘ _If_ we really were--’

Braxiatel is sure Narvin is about to say something to the effect of, _if we really were married, I already would have divorced you_ , and, well, he simply can’t have that, can he? So he slips his hand back to the nape of Narvin’s neck, not just a light touch this time but a grip, a firm pressure of his fingers against the sensitive skin. The Coordinator abruptly straightens as if he were on a parade ground, his complexion going unattractively blotchy.

It is _deeply_ satisfying.

Even more satisfying is the cracked strain in Narvin’s voice when he speaks. ‘If you could direct us to our suite, please? My… _husband_ is right, I’m, ah, a little tired.’

The ambassador burbles amusement at them-- marital disputes, how quaint!-- and turns away to fetch a docent, who gives them both a little bow and turns to lead them to their rooms. Narvin stalks after it in high dudgeon; Brax trails after them at a much more leisurely pace, chuckling to himself as he goes.

He flirts outrageously with Narvin for the rest of their stay. It is possibly the most fun he's had in centuries.


	3. Leela/Romana

‘We must pretend to be married just so that you can go and negotiate with these people? Why?’ Leela is giving her that look that says that she will never understand the way Time Lords think, and Romana exhales a little laugh.

‘ _These people_ , Leela, have an unfortunate habit of handing out spouses to those who’ve provided services for their High Court. It’s seen as an honour; if you serve the queen in a particularly notable way, she rewards you by hand-picking a husband or wife for you, and well, _beware_ if you dare refuse a gift from the queen. If one is already married, however...’

Leela exhales a breath of understanding. ‘Ahh, I see.’ And then, her expression growing knowing and amused, she cocks an eyebrow at Romana. ‘And which ambassador of the Time Lords first came back with an unexpected alien bride?’

Romana can feel her own lips twitching. ‘I’m very much afraid it was Vansell.’

They share a moment of eye contact before they both burst into laughter. ‘ _Vansell_?’ Leela gasps, and Romana chokes on her own merriment, one hand pressed flat to her mouth in a completely failed attempt at stifling it. She’s red-cheeked, and Leela is wheezing by the time they both settle down.

‘Anyway,’ Romana says firmly, ‘yes. If you would, Leela? Of course, I could choose somebody else; it’s only important that I be seen to be married, just in case, but honestly, I’d rather it be you.’

‘I will gladly be your wife, Romana.’ Leela’s voice is as serious as if Romana had been sending her on another mission as a bodyguard or a spy, but her eyes are sharp with humour, and Romana smiles and shakes her head.

Leela as her pretend wife, as it turns out, is much the same as Leela as her friend. She asks Romana questions about the planet and its people, she scoffs at the drawn-out diplomatic process, she has to be argued out of accompanying Romana to the council to protect her, even though they both know she’ll be bored stiff by the proceedings. The only difference is the touching. When they’re standing next to each other, Leela lets her hand swing into Romana’s and catch it; she sends her off to meet the queen with a hand on the small of her back; she greets her after she returns with a kiss pressed to her cheek.

In some part of Romana's mind, she knows that all this just confirms that she was right to choose Leela to accompany her on this trip; for Leela, all these casual, physical affections come easily and naturally. It is she who sells the illusion that they're married; Romana doubts any Time Lord could be nearly so careless and uncalculated about it. So in that part of her mind, she's grateful for every squeeze of Leela's fingers, every brush of her lips.

Her gratitude doesn't stop her blushing. Leela teases her for it, laughing. 'They will think I am doing something much worse than I am! There is no cause for embarrassment, Romana.'

Romana lifts her chin, pressing her lips together. 'I am not _embarrassed_.'

At that, Leela tilts her head, looking at her hard for a moment. 'If you do not like it,' she says after a moment, 'I will stop. I do not wish to make you uncomfortable.'

'I'm not--' Romana sighs, annoyed at herself, and still oddly flustered in a way she doesn't know how to place. 'I'm not uncomfortable. No, really, Leela, I'm not, I'm just-- not quite used to it.'

Something flashes over Leela's face, and Romana turns to face her, deliberately initiating the contact for once, taking both of Leela's hands in hers and pulling her over to a pair of chairs, pulling her down so they face one another. 'But you are. You miss this kind of touch.'

It's a question that she tries her very best not to let sound like one, and Leela gives her a rueful little look, before glancing away, her expression going distant. 'I do,' she admits. 'In my tribe, that was... how you showed affection. It did not have anything to do with being lovers. Parents brushed their children's hair, or-- my father used to do this, like--' With a flick of her eyes up to Romana's to warn of her intent, Leela leans forward and catches the curve of Romana's skull in the bowl of her hand, bringing their foreheads together for a brief press. Although Leela had introduced it as a parental gesture, it feels startlingly intimate to Romana, for which she feels rather guilty. Leela continues.

'When I was a girl, my friends and I would often embrace, or play at wrestling together. When I grew older and became a hunter, my comrades and I would sleep together to stave off the cold of the night.’ She shrugs dismissively. ‘You are my friend, Romana. It feels… natural to me to want to touch you.’

Entirely without her consent, Romana feels her cheeks heat again. She only has about a nanospan to be embarrassed about it before Leela laughs at her again, and then Romana finds herself grateful for the shift away from the unexpectedly sombre mood.

‘I did not know you blushed so easily! I will have to find out if other Time Lords are the same.’

When councils and ceremonial dinners are finally finished, and the two of them are shown to their quarters for the night, Romana is confronted with only one bed. It strikes her as a lapse on her part that this comes as a surprise, because of course there would be only one bed in a room meant for a married couple, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to her until now.

Leela has already gone to sit at the bedside, stripping out of the tunic and leggings she’s worn as the Official Presidential Spouse (‘I will _not_ wear your silly robes,’ she had said. ‘Just-- anything but your leathers, please, Leela,’ Romana had answered), and she looks up, halfway through tugging off a boot, at Romana’s overlong pause between the door and the bed.

‘Something is wrong?’

‘No, no, nothing’s wrong,’ Romana assures her, hasty and distracted. ‘Ah, you can have the bed, Leela. There are-- documents and things I need to go through, anyway, I’ll take the chair.’

Leela wrinkles her nose at her. ‘Do not be stupid, we will share the bed; it is certainly large enough for both of us.’

Romana huffs a little laugh. ‘I’m not one of your hunting comrades, Leela, we hardly need to huddle for warmth.’

The look Leela gives her in response to that is incomparably eloquent of how stupid she thinks Romana is at times, and then she shakes her head, pulling off her other boot and tucking her legs up onto the bed with her. ‘We have been wives this day; why should we not this night?’

‘Leela!’

Again, she thinks distantly, perhaps she shouldn’t be shocked, but she is. More than half of it is simply Leela’s _bluntness_ ; no sly suggestion or innuendo or flirtation, simply the offer, the curious sense that it’s made without expectation. But Romana is unused to _any_ offers, sexual or otherwise, coming without expectations and consequences that she can’t quite take it at face value. 

‘Leela, what you’re offering--’

‘Sex,’ she supplies helpfully.

‘Yes, sex. I’m not-- you know how I am; it took me long enough to even get used to thinking of you as a friend--’

‘ _You_ are thinking too hard, as you always do,’ Leela interrupts. ‘I have no agenda, Romana; I ask nothing more than what I say.’

‘I hardly suspect you of an _agenda_ , Romana chides gently. ‘You of all people. You’re probably the most honest person I know.’

‘And I think it has been too long for both of us, and who better than with a friend? There is nothing wrong with the giving of pleasure.’

Romana flushes faintly, pursing her lips and lifting her chin. It _has_ been a long time, though it’s scarcely something she thinks much about; presidential duties provide a thorough distraction from a lack of a sex life. And what might be a long time’s abstinence for Leela is nothing to her. Still, though, now that it’s on offer, she _is_ thinking about it. Sensing her wavering, Leela very deliberately tilts her head, giving Romana one of her sweetest, most I Am But A Simple Savage smiles.

‘And as I _am_ your wife...’

Romana relents with a laugh. ‘Well! Far be it from me to deny my wife her conjugal privileges.’

Leela’s smile at that is brighter than the sunsrise, and whatever might follow, Romana is in this moment glad she’d agreed; she treasures Leela’s happiness, and it seems all too rare these days.

‘How--?’ she starts, and Leela gets up from the bed, shirtless, in leggings and bare feet, and gestures Romana close.

‘Come here.’

Romana does, and Leela swoops in to tilt her face up into a kiss. It’s not violent or rough, but it certainly isn’t chaste, Leela licking into her mouth and sucking on her lips. It goes on long enough for Romana to convince her body that it’s allowed to feel arousal, allowed to interpret the physical sensations as sexual and respond to them in kind. When finally her mind and body slot into an accord, she feels it like the drop of zero gravity in her stomach, a sudden, swooping _deepening_ that clenches in her gut and twists around the base of her spine, and she gasps into Leela’s mouth.

She’s aware, as Leela pulls away, that her lips are wet and faintly tingling, but more transfixing is the sight of Leela’s face. Her eyes are very dark, pupils dilated, and her expression is _sly_. ‘ _There_ you are,’ she says.

Romana could try to find something to say in response, but instead, spurred on by a tiny spark of something almost like competition, unwilling to seem like a follower or a passive recipient of Leela’s affections, she kisses her again. It’s easy to catalogue reactions, to determine what works best, noting the things that make Leela respond most favourably. She gets an indulgent smile when Romana nibbles her lip; luxurious reciprocation when Romana tongues her palate, stroking her tongue over hers; a gasp and then-- and this makes heat constrict between Romana’s thighs-- a _growl_ when she takes Leela’s tongue into her mouth and sucks.

She feels the alien impulse to touch, and for once, she allows it, one of her hands drifting to cup Leela’s breast, finding the nipple with her thumb and stroking softly over it. Romana can _feel_ the air drawn out of her mouth when Leela gasps, and when she breaks away, Romana opens her eyes to find Leela’s expression dark, and hungry, and fond.

‘Now will you agree with me that your robes are silly? I wish to touch you as well.’

There’s no need for her to be any clearer than that. Between the two of them, they quickly divest Romana of her clothes-- the Presidential robes, the under-tunic and trousers, the underwear under that, until Romana is standing, entirely naked, in a puddle of cream and gold. Leela eyes her with pleasure as she finishes stripping out of her own clothes.

‘You are beautiful.’

It’s not intended to flatter or to draw out a reaction from Romana; merely a simple observation of fact, and it’s that which makes Romana’s face heat, unsure quite how to respond. She bites her lip, gaze flitting about to try and find something innocuous to land on, and Leela laughs.

‘What, you are! You Time Lords, you hide your bodies away under these silly robes and pretend as if you do not have them at all. I _know_ you are more truly your minds than your bodies, Andred told me--’ Romana braces herself for tension or awkwardness at the mention of Andred, but none comes; Leela merely continues on. ‘But everything your great minds know comes through your bodies; you must hear with your ears and see with your eyes. Even your telepathy needs touch, does it not?’

‘Well,’ Romana hedges, ‘not precisely, but--’

Leela waves a hand dismissively. ‘I was making a point. You should not ignore your body.’

As if to underscore her point, she leans in to kiss hotly up the length of Romana’s neck, nipping at her ear. ‘ _Oh_ ’, Romana breathes shudderingly, and Leela tumbles her back onto the bed, contriving to spread Romana out on her back while Leela kneels braced above her. She spreads a hand over quivering concavity of Romana’s stomach, suns-browned fingers pressing into the dip of one hipbone, the meat of her palm resting just barely above her mons pubis.

‘You are so thin!’

‘I eat sufficiently,’ Romana objects, a little self-consciously. ‘Granted, I’m not exactly a paragon of athleticism, but Time Lords rarely are.’

‘And pale,’ Leela continues, hand moving to trace over a place where the blue veins are visible under the skin of Romana’s inner thigh.

Romana’s face pinches, and she maneouvres herself up onto her elbows. ‘Really, Leela. You say I’m beautiful, and then proceed to go on about all my physical shortcomings--’

‘No, no!’ Leela objects, ‘That is not what I meant. Only--’ she frowns, trying to think of the best way to say what she means, and her fingers on Romana’s thigh never stop in their motion. ‘You are strong, and powerful, and yet your body looks so fragile. I know it is not, but it _seems_ to be.’

And then she smiles again, wide and warm, as she looks down at Romana. ‘That is _good_ , Romana. The Doctor is the same; he may look and act like a fool, but underneath he is as a sharpened blade.’

Suddenly, with a feeling like bubbles fizzing up her spine, Romana’s self-consciousness and defensiveness evaporate. It is so very, very like Leela to express appreciation for her appearance because it might _deceive her enemies_ , that Romana can’t help but laugh. Leela is eternally a hunter; even in bed, it would seem.

‘And’, Leela adds, in a lower voice, dipping to scrape her teeth just under Romana’s navel, ‘you _are_ beautiful. And I would like to make you feel very, very good. May I do that?’

‘You may.’

If Romana is expecting some immediate movement, for Leela to perhaps pin her on the spot and ravish her, she doesn’t get it. Leela stays where she is for some time, covering Romana from navel to thigh with soft, lingering kisses, occasionally biting or sucking hard enough to leave a mark-- on her inner thigh where that blue vein shows, in the concave dip of the inside of a hipbone-- all the while kneading with her hands, down the length of Romana’s legs and up to her slender hips. She applies herself with genuine, appreciative patience, artfully building a nearly electric charge beneath Romana’s skin. It’s exquisite to lay there and bask in the anticipation, but Romana is too impatient and not enough of a sensualist to be content with just that. Her hearts have sped, and she can feel how wet she’s grown, every needful clench and twitch of internal muscles. Ducked down so close to her cunt, Leela must surely know. Leela must be able to _smell_ her.

Romana groans, a strangled sound half pleasure and half frustration, and throws her head back into the mattress, entreating, ‘ _Leela_!’

‘Shh,’ Leela shushes her, and Romana can feel the puff of her breath, the brush of her nose against her pubic hair. But blessedly, she takes the prompting, her fingers finally sliding to where Romana is aching for the contact. She spreads Romana’s labia with a vee of her spread fingers, and then presses in to lick a long, leisurely line up to her clitoris. Romana promptly loses her breath. Leela repeats the motion, groaning ardently.

‘You taste--’ she breathes roughly, pulling back for a moment to look up at Romana, ‘-- mm, _gorgeous_. I could do this for hours.’

Nuzzling back in-- and for a moment Romana is struck with the absurd (yet somehow ridiculously arousing) thought that she looks like she’s _burrowing_ \-- she nudges her nose between Romana’s folds to lick deeper, no longer superficial but down to Romana’s entrance, kissing there as thoroughly as she had done her mouth, before drawing up again to find her clit. She finds that Romana likes suction better than licking, and when she draws two of her own fingers into her mouth to wet them, and then curls them up into Romana, that she likes that best of all.

It almost comes as a surprise to Romana as well; floating in the gentler pleasure of Leela’s mouth on her, she’s entirely unprepared for the sudden, gutpunched _depth_ of sensation when Leela curls her fingers hard inside her. It shocks a high, thready noise out of her, tugging her hips up in a great, helpless leap.

‘ _Fuck_ ’, she swears, the profanity startled out of her, ‘Oh-- oh, _Leela_ , do that again.’

But Leela doesn’t. Instead, she draws her hand away-- immediately Romana _aches_ for the lack of her fingers-- and smacks a little kiss to the skin of Romana’s stomach.

‘If you _dare_ \--’ Romana starts hoarsely, putting as much presidential severity into her voice as she can muster, but Leela hushes her, easing her fingers between the mattress and Romana’s back as if to roll her over.

‘Like this,’ murmurs Leela huskily, ‘it feels good this way.’

Romana allows her to manhandle her onto her hands and knees, and then Leela is behind her, nudging her legs apart with her knee, pressing herself all along the length of Romana’s body, breasts and stomach pressed to her back. Her mouth is on the back of Romana’s neck, and one hand is at her breast, kneading, and the other is plunging three fingers into her. As maddeningly gentle as she had been before, she is now unrelenting, stimulating too many nerves at once. Three fingers soon become four, and Leela fucks her with them-- there’s no other word for it-- as she sucks and bites at the back of her neck. The sensitive nerve cluster there feels like a lightning storm under her attentions, snapping down Romana’s spinal cord and out, until even her fingers and toes are tingling.

Her head hanging loose on her neck, Romana desperately arches her back, shoving her arse up into Leela’s pelvis, into the rhythm of her fingers fucking her, curling inside her to ignite a dark, taut, hungry sensation in the space between her hips. She feels strung tight and loose as a puppet all at once, and her knees dig into the bed as she bites her lip against her own whimpers.

Leela’s voice vibrates against her ear. ‘Come, Romana, I wish to see it. If you could see yourself like this, ohh, the way you look around my fingers, shining and wet, and flush with blood, oh, I could _devour_ you, Romana.’

And then she adds her thumb. She presses thumb and fingers into a wedge shape, bearing down into Romana, and the _fullness_ and the _stretch_ is too much to withstand. Romana bucks and cries out, her vision tunnelling like she’s been physically struck by the force of her own orgasm. It rips through her, great waves of it pounding against her nerves, and throughout she can feel her cunt clenching around Leela’s fingers, muscles contracting and fluttering until slowly, slowly, the waves abate. Romana is left with her forehead pressed into her own crossed arms, the muscles in her legs feeling entirely too syrupy to support her.

The logical thing to do is clearly to simply collapse. Which she does, with Leela on top of her. Distantly, she’s aware of Leela’s laughter, the teeth of her smile pressed into Romana’s shoulderblade, until she maneouvres them around until they’re both half-curled on their sides facing each other, one of Leela’s legs thrown over Romana’s.

‘Mmm,’ Romana murmurs, and it’s only the particular, lazy, post-coital brand of affection that makes it so easy to reach out a hand and card it through Leela’s hair. ‘I’ll-- just give me a moment to recover; I’ll be with you presently.’

Leela laughs again, and leans in to knock her forehead against Romana’s playfully. ‘I will take that as a compliment.’

For half a microspan, Romana does nothing but lie there, enjoying the lingering wash of pleasure that’s suffusing her, and the warmth of Leela’s body, and the thundering of her hearts in her ears. That half a microspan having passed, she turns her attention to Leela, slipping the hand in her hair down to her chin, and lifting her into a sloppy kiss. 

Romana is not overly confident in her skills as a physical lover, but she is if nothing else determined, and there is one thing she can do that Leela certainly cannot. So she hums into the kiss, languid and content, and lifts her hand to Leela’s temples, slipping into her mind. Leela’s mind is a curious dichotomy; Romana knows it to be much simpler and easier to navigate than a Time Lord mind, but even so, once within, she finds herself battered with a maelstrom of disordered thought and sensation.

Still, it’s an easy thing to find the pleasure centres, to stroke them, to pinch and twist, ruthlessly stimulating nerves from the inside. In her arms, Leela freezes, and then _convulses_ , and the sound she makes is nearly a shriek, high and full-throated and rough, and Romana can do nothing but hold onto her. There’s a gush of wet warmth against her leg, and then Leela is shaking all over, gasping, laughing giddily, rolling away to sprawl bare over the sheets, legs tangled and arms thrown carelessly out at odd angles. She is so gorgeously vital and raw in this moment that Romana can’t help but stare, at the flat plane of Leela’s stomach quivering and jerking with her laughter and her heaving breaths, at the liquid caught and beaded in her pubic hair, smeared slickly over her inner thighs.

Her mouth is inexplicably dry with the urge to taste. Even without the aid of practical experience, to lean down and bury her face between Leela’s thighs and devour her until she comes again. She doesn’t, but the thought is there. For the moment, Romana allows it to remain.

Leela’s laughter finally abates, and she cranes her head to look bright-eyed up at Romana, grinning in a way that shows her teeth. ‘Oh, that is a _good_ trick,’ she breathes, vehemently appreciative.

Romana smiles minutely, just a little smug. ‘What were you saying about the body being more important than the mind?’

That starts up Leela’s laughter afresh, and she levers herself up, crawling over to fling a knee over Romana’s thighs. Sitting in her lap, she leans down to grant Romana a sloppy kiss, smiling against her mouth. ‘Mm, I will grant you this round.’

‘ _This_ round?’ Romana lifts an eyebrow.

She has had occasion before to think of Leela’s smiles as _sharp_ ; never before this moment, however, would she have placed one of those sharp smiles in this particular context. A leftover shiver of arousal constricts around her spine. ‘You have the look of a woman who desires another,’ says Leela, with a certain amount of smugness of her own.

‘Yes, well,’ says Romana primly. ‘I’ll grant you that. Perhaps… tomorrow morning, there are-- a few things I’d like to try. But _first_ I would like to wash.’

‘Yes,’ Leela agrees with a chuckle, and they share a glance down at their naked bodies, sweaty and damp. ‘And then-- would you sleep with me, Romana? I know you do not need sleep as I do, but--’ for the first time, she sounds faintly anxious, and Romana remembers their conversation earlier.

‘Of course. Of course I will.’


End file.
